Friday, July 24, 2009

A bird, after crawling through the thick pitch of a dark sky for hours, landed in an underground tree. Like an albatross, unstably perched on a twig of attention, this bird longed for a familiar story from out of the blue, as told by the forever winds that rise up from the heat of whispers coming from the below combined with the incessant flight-song echoing from the within. Hard pressed to settle down, it twizzled its head to falsely reclaim what was so dear about the action of flight in the joy of flying.

As if we were being brought into frame, an awareness settled in to the unexpectedness of this moment. With our senses on alert, a beak is sharpened against a near by branch much like a human would pause to stretch and flex to get one’s inner bearings. There is an intimacy of self-observation. Physical fatigue calls for a rest. Every next step, no matter what direction, would need full and undivided attention. So much history into so much heed, and so little application as obvious. It is like the alert of wide-open eyes is a darken cave where the rods and cones scramble their roles to give support from the light that is available. It is transcendent to be in it and of it and yet we, in witness from beyond it, like sensing the enormity of the cave yet craving tactile and immediate details for anchoring.

That we as witness have no method of intervention, feel useless yet providing in unrealized ways. Is there a crazy wisdom at work and we as a whole are also the evidence undisclosed unto ourselves? If it were I, I would like to take to wing what talons my attention. To fidget with form as if every next touch, even wing against a cave wall, is a bead in the mantra of life presented to my consciousness unfolding, as a bird of prey now in a life of prayer.

And to realize that perched in an underground tree, is much like the life of the hanged man, giving me hope that there are roots in the sky above me and that all as paradox plays out. And to crawl is as to fly is like how now is as a glass half full that prepares me for what is to come. And now feeds and nourishes me in ways I cannot demand. For there is no demand placed upon wisdom, or serenity, or anything to overcome. All will come and go and come again and I am obliged to surrender the remembrance of the first time to fully arrive at nothing more than now but with more candle power in my consciousness, brighter flame in my presence and not withholding to the embrace of everything as flight is dance and dance is flight and roots in the sky that will receive me.